The extraordinary mechanical properties of limpet enamel come from their composite construction: a versatile scaffold made from chitin (a typical substance present in bugs, crustaceans, and different organisms), strengthened with nanocrystals of a type of iron oxide referred to as goethite. 

Exploiting the energy of such a fabric may supply options to some engineering challenges. “There are quite a lot of functions of know-how which are restricted by the energy and toughness of supplies,” says Nicola Pugno, a researcher on the College of Trento in Italy, who was concerned within the 2015 examine. 

Weaker and extra fragile supplies restrict the lifetime of objects, and so they may also forestall us from constructing new issues for extra excessive functions “as a result of at a given level, we’ll attain the failure of the fabric,” says Pugno.  

Whereas the attraction of replicating a very robust pure materials is obvious, determining learn how to do it’s much less so. “First you must re-create these very wonderful constructions within the lab, after which you must discover methods of manufacturing which are near industrial manufacturing,” explains Zunfeng Liu, a researcher engaged on synthetic spider silk at Nankai College in Tianjin, China.